How to Sort Products...

The best inventory sorter that I've seen so far is the one on Western Depot's website. 

You can fill or leave blank as many fields as you want and it'll bring up exactly what you ask it for.

 

No, No, I'm not talking about filling in a FILTER. I'm talking about browsing... Clicking the links.

 

How should the products be sorted into their categories...

well you could separate the diesel power into modern vrs 1st and 2nd generation.

Once in O/Lionel/Locomotives/Steam, just sort them by model number low to high. That way I can look for 6-11405 or whatever and know if you have it or not pretty quick.

You want to see how not to sort items, go to Pat's Trains. Ive bought from Pat and I would buy from him again but finding stuff on his site is a huge pain in the A**!!!

The best I have seen is M. B. Klein's (modeltrainstuff.com).  The website is organized in levels pretty much like you describe in you opening thread: by scale scale, but then by type (rolling stock, locomotives, passenger trains, vehicles, figures, track, accessories, etc., then you get all of what you selected (O Gauge, figures).  THEN you can pick from a pull down list of manufacturers (so you get a difference list for, say locos, as opposed to say, figures), and THEN, most useful for browsing, you can ask for the items to be sorted by newest first, oldest first, lowest to highest cost or vice versa.  Sounds perfect for browsing.  

 

I agree that Western Depot has a good organization but their search feature is among the weaker ones. 

On Charlie's and Mr Muffin's I search by part number which requires going to Lionel or Mth web pages and using there search engine to get the part #   If you could have a search engine like the manufacturers....

Model train stuff and wholesale trains show up on google when you do a model # search.

Just my thoughts, please sort by "SCALE" or "SEMI-SCALE". Nothing worse that viewing through steam locomotives, or diesel locomotives without any indication of what is "SCALE" and what isn't.

Don't forget there some things that are not scale specific or may apply to more than one scale. I would prefer to access to those at the first level.

I agree. Then in O the third level would probably be Scale or Semi Scale? Or the second level?

I would also like sites better if they separated the scale stuff from the non-scale stuff.  It can be a pain some times to wade through tons of non-scale stuff to find the scale items, especially since som much more stuff is non-scale.

 

Andy

and no matter what have an "ALL" button so everything will load.  nothing more frustrating then have a page reload every 10 or 20 items.

One thing I've noticed is that unless you use the DEALER's part number, MOST sites won't find something.  As an example, if I type in 6-18005, most of the sites won't find it.  If however, I search for LIO618005 or LIO18005 or whatever other codes the dealer uses, up pops the item for which I was searching.  Very frustrating, because unless you find *something* in the search results, you don't even have a clue what your part number scheme follows.

I agree with Lee. Model Train Stuff is easy.

 

And thanks for asking. You guys really do a nice job asking our opinions and keeping us informed. I really appreciate it and it has resulted in business for you as a result with more to come this week.

Carl, that is exactly how nicholas smith works but I love to just browse items lookign to fill some holes. Some sites do not lend to that tactic

Don't fix - what's not broken

Gromet, as I read your original post, the first thing that came to my mind was Western Depot's site.  I realize you're looking at it from a "links" perspective, but what you're describing from a practical perspective is exactly what the Western Depot filter provides their shoppers.

 

For example, if I want to stop at steam engines, that's all I need to specify.  If I want to go further, I'd specify the particular type of steam engine.  Assuming your website database allows it, you can categorize and sub-categorize items to your heart's content.  And what is presented back to the user at that point is a dynamically-created INDEX of links that the user can then click on to view select items in more detail.

 

Although it may seem like overkill at first glance, I find the Western Depot site to be one of the easiest to "find" items.  There's nothing more frustrating than entering search key words only to have the website's search function deliver a list of stuff that has no correlation to what was asked.  And some very popular dealer sites do exactly that.  Big turn-off.

 

David 

 

Forcing people to go though too many links is counter productive, and will likely cause people to turn away.
I suggest against going any further than separating steam, diesel, and electric. At that point, give people the option to use filters for finer selection.

Another thought: many websites show pictures of each item that is for sale, so few pieces fit on a page. Pictures are great, but I would prefer to have an option to see what is available as a list, so much more product would fit on the page.

As Lee mentions above, M.B. Klein is tops. Not only an excellent web site for browsing and buying, but they feature real-time inventory update with a product "counter." I know it works because I've purchased the last of an in-stock item and the counter shows zero or "out of stock" immediately.

 

Really valuable when a new item comes in and you can see how many they have available for purchase. Several times I've jumped on something knowing that they only have a few on hand.

Nassau Hobby's website has a nice implementation of this feature now.  You just need to click on the quantity selector, and the drop-box will show the maximum quanitity available for purchase.  If you place the remaining quantity in your shopping cart, the display immediately updates to "sold out".

 

David

I actually JUST did an update that shows "Quantity in Stock" a bit more clearly in the Item details...

Timing is everything, Gromet.  Nice touch!!! 

 

David

Want manufacturers model number, engine or car type, a small photo, your price. Clicking on photo should take viewer to manufacturers web page for more details such as road number, MSRP, date released, etc.

Once in Locomotives:

> Scale or non-scale

> Steam or diesel

> Road name

 

I would be much more interested in road name than type of engine, whether it is scale size or not and steam or diesel as I have diesels only. It would also be nice to be able to selective search on many of these items to narrow your selections.

Personally, unless you can do multiple categories that will show the same product, I feel you are risking causing people to not find items once you go any further than Steam/Diesel/Electric.

 

I have no idea how the data base you use works, but if I were to use a simple table in Excel as an example, such a  table could support multiple categorization by having columns for each category type, populating with a "1" for any line item where that category is applicable.  Set up the Excel filters to only show entries with a "1" for any given category and you get a full subset of of items in that category.

 

I know the web site does not use Excel, but the sort of multiple categorization this method would allow would be useful, rather than a simple list of items if you do start narrowing it down too much once past Steam/Diesel/Electric.

 

Another option would be to do something similar to what computer or technology stores do (see Best Buy, Staples, TigerDirect, etc).  Have a bunch of characteristics to the left that have check boxes next to options (scale/traditional, price ranges, etc).  Each time a box is checked, the full list gets narrowed down (when it works right).  Those being much larger operations, I don't know if that type of function can easily be implemented on your site. 

 

After re-thinking my response I'm realizing I'm veering into the world of filtering with the last 3 paragraphs.  I probably should have stopped after typing the first paragraph.

 

 

-Dave